


Spring Storm

by down



Category: Magic Knight Rayearth
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot, Post canon, everyone is grown up, influenced by magic, somewhat dubious consent issues which get resolved before anything really happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Written with the CLAMP kinkmeme as an excuse) </p><p>Umi gets (magically) drawn into a storm, and Clef has to try to keep her from getting irrevocably lost in it. Only it's a thunderstorm, and he's not precisely in control, either...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me my italics, and the, uh, everything of this. *wry grin* First even vaguely explicitish (it's really not very) thing I've posted, heh. But I've managed! Feedback, comments, concrit etc all very welcome I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING *laughs*
> 
> Also LANTIS, LANTIS, HOW DID YOU EVER GET INTO THIS.

Wind howled about the towers of the Cephiran castle, vibrating through the crystalline stone of the walls until the air inside shivered with the fury of the storm building outside. Clouds massed high in the air, flat across the bottom as if they were pressed down on some invisible surface, but piled high in great heaps of a strange coppery grey. 

Umi was alone in the room the Knights still shared here. She sat in the dark, watching the clouds mass outside and cover over the stars. An aching chill penetrated the glass, but she still leant against it, her attention fixed on the weather. A shiver ran through her with each new gust of wind, and there was rain coming; she could feel the promise of it in the air, prickling over her skin. Even here, inside.

She had dragged a blanket off the bed to wrap about her shoulders as she sat in the window seat she had made, a year ago, one of her first attempts at creative magic. It was wonky, with a tendency to curving where it should be straight, but the cushions Caldina had helped her find made it comfortable enough, and it was _hers_. She knew every inch of it, intimately, and it was comforting when the entire world was filling her with an uncertain, unsettled energy. She almost itched with the urge to go somewhere, do something, but _what_? She wanted to dance in the rain, but it wasn’t raining. She wanted to shout and tear things apart with her magic, but that would be... antisocial, at best. So she huddled against the window and wrapped herself up, and hoped quietly that either Hikaru or Fuu would be back soon. 

(Fuu wasn’t likely to come back at all tonight. She had been staying with Ferio more and more, and while Umi was happy for her - and amused at how easy it was to make her blush again - it made her harder to find when Umi wanted her.) (Hikaru was... well, Eagle was here for the first long visit since his recovery, the NSX’s lights blinking somewhere beyond the thickening clouds. Every night this holiday Lantis and Eagle had walked a yawning, happy Hikaru back at some point in the small hours, after sitting up talking for hours. That was, Eagle and Hikaru talked, mainly, and Lantis listened, and it was all very gentle and sweet but one of them was going to have to do something more eventually.) 

Which left Umi feeling all loose ends. She had plenty to do during the day, friends to follow about and attempt to help - she was now banned from helping with the laundry, but she would swear until the end of time that it was Caldina’s fault. She couldn’t have known that the water was going to get quite _that_ far across the floor... 

There were her lessons in magic, too, all three of them taking what spare hours Clef had here and there, but she’d promised not to practise anything new without another mage about, and why bother practising things she could already do? But after dinner, the people of Cephiro all retired to their own rooms, their families, and she couldn’t just force her way into someone else’s home - Clef worked, but he swore the best hours of work he got were once everyone else stopped pestering him, so she did try not to. And without practising magic, with Hikaru and Fuu both occupied, she was left with only her schoolwork. This was meant to be a _holiday_. Homework and holidays were two things which should not be mixed until the _last possible moment_ , even when the homework was revising for the University Entrance Exams and most of her class were planning to review for the whole week. She refused to. University seemed horribly unimportant, when she was thinking about Cephiro. 

She’d thought, once or twice, about going to see one of the people she knew would still be working at this hour. LaFarga tended to have the evening shift on patrol, he didn’t mind her tagging along occasionally, so long as she kept asking him questions about what the Guard did. But Umi was running out of questions. Caldina worked the same hours as LaFarga, helping with the day to day running of the castle, and she was easier to talk to, but she asked Umi questions which Umi didn’t want to have to answer, and Ascot always came to find her.

Umi liked Ascot, a lot, but she wasn’t about to suggest that they spent a lot of time alone together, not while his crush was still painfully obvious. Because she liked him, but - she felt like she had to be so careful, all the time, around him, because everything she said or joked about he took so seriously, and he never ever disagreed with her, never stood up to her, and she didn’t want to - to _trample_ him! He was tougher than she worried, she knew he was, but... that was how she felt, anyway.

Which left - well, Clef, really, again, but he was always so busy, and she felt bad about interrupting him, because they always ended up getting sidetracked into some random discussion (or argument, anyway), and he had to chase her out in the middle of the night with a scowl and little chance left of sleep now he was so behind with whatever she’d interrupted this time... 

She’d been thinking about finding him this evening anyway, fidgety and bored, but then the storm began, and she wasn’t going to present herself to him like this, uncertain and irritable and not entirely in control. 

Umi sat in the dark, instead, a little bit scared by the way her breath caught each time the wind gusted harder, a little inclined to feeling sorry for herself. 

Then the storm broke overhead. 

Lightning crashed, thunder howling through the corridors, and the rain sheeted down to engulf the world in a thrumming, drumming wall of water. Umi’s eyes widened as the shock of it ran through her body, a jolt of cold, a bright unbearable yearning to be a part of it, and she remained frozen for three shuddering breaths before she gave in and bolted from the room. 

oOo

Clef tipped his head back and watched through the skylight in his Hall as the first crack of lightning rent the air apart above him, and bit back an undignified noise as the power chased through him. He closed his eyes as the rain began to hammer down, and tried to breathe evenly as his magic reached out in answer to the thunder, thrilling through his skin. 

It took all his concentration to keep himself still, and steady - he’d only just learned to manage his new form, all the new reflexes and reactions which came with an adult body, things he hadn’t dealt with in an age. _This_ was simply ridiculous! His body reacting to Cephiro herself - it was something any mage was meant to learn when they first came into their power, when they were first learning control, when they were an _actual_ adolescent, not _centuries after they became Guru_ when they merely happened to _look like one!_

But lightning had never before been a natural phenomenon in Cephiro. Not more than once a decade, anyway, not enough to learn how to control his reaction to it in a form developed enough to react.

 _Spring, huh_. He thought, letting his head tip back further, suppressing the urge to go and wander outside. The storms had begun with the new season, and all their information said that this was common, and would continue now Cephiro needed the balance of the yearly cycle. Which meant... enduring another month, perhaps, when this weather was likely? 

The first and sharpest wave of the storm was beginning to ease, and his power began settling down as he stood firm and kept an unyielding grip on his magic. 

_Well, maybe I’ll be able to get some work done in a while, anyway. The last hour was ridiculous_.

He settled himself into place, and called his staff into his hands, not willing to trust himself without some kind of outside focus for his power tonight. As always, his first thought was for the castle, the shields about it and the stability of the walls. He let his mind reach out to rest against those spells, just reassuring himself of their presence. A habit formed in the days following Emeraude’s fall, and one he couldn’t rid himself of. One which had caught unexpected flaws before they became problems in the strange days of the early rebuilding.

The foundations stood strong, the walls remained unflinching even when a bolt of lightning slammed into one of the towers and Clef started so hard he nearly dropped the staff. The bolt was drawn into the stone and channelled out through the walls, transformed into power to fuel the shields and keep the castle standing instead of bringing it down. 

Clef paused a moment to rub a hand across his face, then grabbed his staff again and swiftly followed the walls as they rose above him, trying to finish his review before any more lightning could strike the towers. The wards were steadier than he was, right now. 

...Except there was a pulse of strange wild magic pushing against them, flaring above him, power so familiar that he stood a moment staring up at the sky, bemused by the strangeness of the sensation prickling cold and sharp against his reach. Then there was a howl of wind and the rain slammed down onto the skylight above him, and the power flared too, like a raging beacon, and Clef’s eyes went very wide. 

His staff clattered to the floor, abandoned as he sprinted for the stairs and prayed to every god and spirit still in Cephiro that he wouldn’t be too late. 

oOo

She was the rain in the air, the clouds, the rivers and the streams and the vast stretch of the sea danced with her, through her; she felt every inch of Cephiro as water dripped and ran and seeped down into rock, gleaming and so so beautiful, so very vast. She flung herself into it, whirling further and further into the open rain-filled air until her awareness was insignificant in the grandeur, unimportant: she let it go, and reached out into the rain, and part of her awareness was of the girl on the roof who shone with the magic tying her to the world but that body was so small, so distant, what did it matter? It was just another part of the water, of Cephiro, stepping further and further into the rain. 

But - 

But there was someone else who shone in the night, flickers of power leeching into the air about him as he stepped into the open, and the rain shivered with his approach, with his magic - and he came closer to the girl, and she shivered too. That power flickered fitfully through her, and for a moment she was the girl on the roof again. 

There was something else ringing in the air, cutting through the magic and the storm - a word, and it caught her attention, because it meant _ocean_ , it meant - her. 

“Umi- Umi! Damn it, Umi, listen to me!” 

Lightning crashed down, and his power flared out in sympathy, reaching up, shuddering through the air - she, _Umi_ , turned back and she could see him, in the rain, eyes closed as he shook - then the crack of his power reached her, and illuminated her body. It crashed through her, pain and something else, something more, dragging her into awareness of every inch of flesh which made up her body.

When she looked again, his eyes kept her pinned inside her skin. The rain was tugging at her, drawing her out, but there was a demand in the sharpness of his gaze and she trusted him. Somehow, she knew she trusted him. 

He was speaking, she could see his mouth opening, but the rain drowned out everything else - until he glared and stepped closer, closer, right into her space. She shuddered, his power lashing about him harder here, like invisible tails whipping about him in every direction, leaping from drop to drop of water - and then his hands were on her arms, and she cried out at the intensity of _skin_ and _lightning_ and _magic_ -

“Umi!” He snapped, and she heard him this time, everything of him demanding her attention. “Umi, listen! This is your body! _This_ is you, not the storm - let the rain go! It’s not safe, you’ll be stretched too thin, dragged away-” 

“...Clef...” She held onto him, slowly, her hands tingling as she pressed them against the bare skin of his arm, his face, watching the glow of him shine about her hands, the rain drip over him - and she was that rain, too, felt it seeping into the cloth of his clothes, tangle through his hair... The water hadn’t reached through to the clothes he wore next to his skin. She frowned, and then she was tangled strands of water sweeping down and up and leaping for his collar, cuffs, wrapping about every part of him... 

A jolt of lightning shot through her, and through the ringing in her ears she heard him, again. The lightning jangled through nerves and pinned her to that body; she was leaning against the man, her mouth pressed to his neck, and his hands were hurting her shoulders. “Come back.” He was ordering, and Umi hissed. She didn’t like being _ordered_ , not even by this man who she wanted to wrap about, to saturate, to drown in herself until she _knew_ him. She reached into the storm again, to the power in every drop which resonated with what she was - and power shocked through her yet again, slamming her awareness back into place. 

But...

The man’s voice, his face in front of her... there was something... she didn’t like the look there, the shake in his voice, the lines about his eyes. He was... afraid, and she didn’t like it. She reached out again, but with her hands this time, hands still tingling with the edges of his power, and cupped his face, trying to soothe away those lines with her thumbs. “Don’t... look at me like that.” She said, her voice uncomfortably dry, like she was dragging it up through a desert instead of a throat. 

He swallowed, and his eyes were still wide, but there was a difference to the look now. It didn’t... hurt in the same way. 

Now the way he looked at her _itched_ , but she didn’t know what to _do_ about it. 

“Then - stay with me, Umi.” He told her, asked her, and his arms were warm about her back. This close, the flashes of power rolling off him were enough to lim each inch of her, defining her. “Come all the way out of the storm and _stay with me_.” 

She _was_ with him, she wanted to protest - she was wrapped all about him, in the puddles below his feet and each new drop of water striking his head to trickle down the curve of his cheek, to run down his throat, growing warm from the heat of his body as it went. But before she could find her voice again to tell him so, lightning crashed from the sky instead of his hands - and he shuddered, eyelids closing over a blue which gleamed unnaturally, and she felt his attention slipping away, his hands loosening a moment on her. And she didn’t like it. 

“Hey!” She wrapped her arms about him, pressing forwards until her cheek was pressed against the rain-slick skin of his neck, and flung her will into every shred of water against him, demanding his attention - and he shuddered again, but his hands were flexing on her back, it was her name he was gasping, voice broken in a way which made her want to squirm closer and find some way to stop the itch burning through her...

“I - oh, Spirits take it, _Umi_ , I - _come back!_ ” He whispered, begged, and pulled her closer so that the wave of power, when he let it free this time, flared through her whole body in a single instant and overwhelmed everything else - overwriting Cephiro, and the rain, and everything but the blazing strength of that touch. 

oOo

Umi blinked her eyes open, and blinked again as rain fell on her face. She focused after a moment - and started back so hard she would have fallen if Clef hadn’t tightened his arms about her. “Uh - hi?” She squeaked, throat so tight her voice was an octave too high at least. 

“Hi.” Clef murmured back, with a raw edge to the richness of his voice. His hair tangled in sodden curves across his face, and he blinked and shook his head a little as rain dripped from one strand close to his eye. Umi reached up before she knew quite what she was doing and pushed his hair away, twining it about her fingers, her palm pressed to his cheek. Then her eyes went wider still, and she would have pulled away - but Clef leant into the touch, just a fraction, and her breath caught in her throat. 

“...Clef?” 

He closed his eyes, bit his lip, turned away - but into her hand, pressing his cheek to it. When a crack of lightning broke through the sky overhead he shivered, swallowed, and his hands wound tighter into the cloth of her jumper. “...Sorry.” He whispered, and his voice was rough, and a shudder ran through Umi at the sound of it as if... as if it was his fingers trailing down her spine, cold from the rain. She felt strange, fidgety, on-edge, and not just from this... whatever this was, staring up at Clef, leaning into his touch. 

Her memories since she’d fled her room were a blurred impression, all sensation and colour and sound, and she didn’t understand them but when she tried to her breath caught and a chill began to creep up from her chest, prickling over her skin, and as it slid up her neck her thoughts began to blur again, lost in the rush of the water dancing about them. “Don’t you dare!” Clef snapped, suddenly; there was a jolt of not-quite-pain where his hands were tight on her waist, and Umi snapped back into her body, staring at him. 

Clef’s eyes were open, and they were _glowing_. 

“Clef - Clef, what’s happening?” She whispered, trying not to shake. Now she was aware of it, she could feel the lure of the storm pulling on her, making her long to step out into free air and fling herself through the sky, embrace it, raise her head and her arms and drink down the rush of power. It was terrifying. But he was... here, and as the lightning crashed down again she felt his breath catch, saw the light flicker about him like an after-image of the flash as thunder shook the air about them. 

Her fingers pressed harder against his chest, only one sodden layer of fabric keeping her skin from the heat of his, her other hand still cradling his face. “It’s - Cephiro is created by will, by power, and the weather - it’s the same as your magic, it’s-” Lightning howled about them, again, actually striking the tower; electricity crackled into the stone of the walls and glowed brightly, flooding the roof to glow below their feet before running down the tower, and Clef shut his eyes again, leaning closer and breathing raggedly. Umi’s breath caught, too, but this time it had nothing to do with the rain. 

“The same as yours, too.” She whispered, and heard the ragged laugh he couldn’t quite hold back.

“...It has an effect. On mages with enough power.” Clef finished, still managing to sound wry. 

“An...” 

“It ...excites us.” He opened his eyes again and looked right at her on that, and now Umi was the one biting her lip, hard, and she wrapped her fingers in his hair, in the cloth of his top, to stop herself doing anything more foolish. “...I’m sorry. We’re meant to learn control of the ...the reaction, while we’re apprenticed, but there were so few storms that I...” 

Umi brushed her thumb across his cheek to watch him lean into the pressure, his eyes shuttering until there was only the barest gleam of blue watching her. “Why are you apologising?” She whispered. “Do you want to... to go?” 

“No! No-” He dragged in a breath and she _felt it_ as he grabbed hold of his power, the sudden stop of a rise in pressure against her skin she hadn’t even registered. But she missed it as soon as it was gone. “I should be helping you, and I’m barely in control of _myself-_ ” 

“...I’m not complaining.” She told him, her throat dry for all of the water in the air. She felt every drop of rain as it hit her, slid over sensitised skin, and she wanted... “Not if it means you’ll let me stay this close.” 

“ _Umi-_ ” He whispered, voice cracking, and for the third time he pressed into her hand, turning his head far enough this time that he could press a kiss to her palm, slowly, rain-damp lips shockingly hot against her chilled skin. She couldn’t help the gasp that touch called from her, and her free hand flexed against his chest, helplessly. His eyes opened just far enough to look at her, still gleaming unnaturally, and she was leaning forwards before she’d even thought about it, hand slipping further into his hair to tug him down to her-

The door to the roof clanged open behind them, and they both started violently - Clef hissed something and snatched Umi towards himself, stumbling backwards, and Umi yelped when they tripped down a step and he barely kept them upright. A split-second later she realised the only step on the roof was the ledge which ran about the edge. Cold shot through her, freezing her in place. “Gods...” She whispered, trying not to look back. “ _Gods-_ ” 

Clef’s arms wrapped tighter about her, and she pressed her face into the curve of his neck, hid from the fall behind them, and she heard it as if the world was muffled when he yelled over the noise of the rain. “ _What, Lantis?!_ ”

“...There was a surge of power from this area.” Lantis said, his voice rumbling deep through the air, a slighter relative of the vast sound of the thunder which cracked again and drowned the end of his last word. Umi felt Clef shudder and turned her head to look at him - and her eyes widened. There was more than a glow about him now, flickers of light darted through the damp erratic curls of his hair, and his eyes were lit by anger as much as the power flickering about them. 

Lantis was far across the roof, halted by the door, and he came no closer, offered no hostile gestures, just spread his empty hands out from his sides, subtly moving them away from his sword. “It set off the warnings in the Guard Room. ...May I suggest you move further from the edge of the roof, Guru? Umi?” 

The rain couldn’t drown out the tight control he was holding on his voice, and Umi turned her face into Clef’s neck again, shuddering, trying not to think about the way she _couldn’t remember getting onto that ledge._

“If you’d slammed out and startled us any earlier I’d be making _you_ apologise to Fyula for being called out in the middle of a storm.” Clef hissed at him - which calmed Umi a little. They wouldn’t have... Then she blinked, and had to stare at him. 

“Fyula? Not the Griffin?” 

“What? Oh. No, he’s terrified of lightning, Fyula just doesn’t like it.” 

“...Why do _you_ have a summon-creature who’s _afraid of lightning?_ ” 

“Because it’s a-” lightning crashed again, and it might have been Umi’s imagination, but the clouds seemed to be dropping closer to them. Clef closed his eyes and shivered through it, his entire body tense, turned away from Lantis. “...a perfectly sane response.” He bit out, afterwards, and then he was looking at her, so distractingly close. “Would you manage to come inside now?”

“I-” Of course, Umi wanted to say, but she found herself actually flinching at the idea. “...I think so?” She ventured, instead. 

“Come, then. Try. Or Lantis is going to stand there worrying at us for hours, and-” He cut himself off there, flushing suddenly, and it was that flush which let her follow the thought - _and I want him to go away and leave us alone_.

She shuddered, knew he could feel it, felt his grip on her tighten for a fraction of a second before he was stepping back, his hands reaching for hers as she let go. He drew her after him towards the door, slowly, and Umi - she tried, she really did, but every puddle she stepped through was a new extension of herself, every drop of rain a strange singing miracle, and without him close enough to push it back the cold dragged tendrils through her, and-

Lightning hurt, in a strangely non-painful way. It was like the ringing in your ears after a sound too loud to be heard, except it was her body shuddering with it: her arms and legs tingling, her breath itching in her lungs, and she only managed to feel her hands when they tightened so much in the cloth of Clef’s robes that each individual thread was being impressed into her skin.

“ _Clef_ ,” she gasped, almost sobbed, clinging onto the heat of him when the rain picked up and hammered down on her, teasing at her mind, her control. “I - I can’t-” 

“You _can_.” He hissed, and one hand tangled in her hair, fingers pressing into her scalp until she looked up at him and opened her eyes. He was glaring down at her, and that was nearly as distracting as the rain. “Stay with _me_ , Umi. Focus on _me_.”

She pressed forward at the same moment he did, and the word ‘kiss’ was nothing _like_ what happened then. This was fierce, and sharp, and demanding, and Umi flung herself into learning it like it was a new way of fighting - and maybe it was, and she wanted to lose as much as she wanted to win. She grabbed the shorter hair at the back of his head, wound her fingers into it, tugged him closer. 

Eventually they had to stop to catch their breath again, and Clef drew back, but not far. His face was a scant distance from hers, and when he stepped backwards she followed. One stumbling pace at a time he drew her across the roof, her attention split between the curve of his lips and the way he was wrapped about her. 

oOo

Umi shivered when he pulled her back under the canopy by the door, at the loss of the rightness of the rain about her, and he kissed her again, deeply, until she was shaking from that instead. Then they were inside, almost falling down the stairs, and someone - Lantis, it had to be, she knew exactly where Clef’s hands were and that was not _on the door_ \- pushed the door shut and locked it firmly. 

She more than shuddered then, feeling achingly cold and small as that vast intoxicating power was locked out, away from her - but Clef was still there, tilting her head back, nipping at her lower lip until she turned her attention back to him, only him, and lost herself in the rush of it.

Lantis gave them a moment, then cleared his throat loudly. 

“What?” Clef snapped, and in the brighter lights indoors Umi wasn’t certain if his eyes were still gleaming unnaturally. “We’re indoors! And you’ve just locked us both out of the shield, so we’re not going to be able to change that until you let us back out.” 

“The storm is not over, and neither you nor Ms Umi are yourself. It would be against my vows as a Guard to leave either of you alone. Including with each other.” It might have been her imagination - probably was - but she almost thought Lantis sounded amused at the end of that. His voice grew quieter as he continued. “It would also make me a bad friend.” 

“...I think I hate you when you’re right.” Clef said, after a pause, sounding rueful, hands slipping from Umi’s hair to merely rest chastely on her back, and Umi... she wanted to get out of here and be embarrassed where no one could see her, but she also didn’t want to step away from Clef - in part because now she was in control, the memory of being so far gone that she cared more about leaping out into the wet than the bit where she _couldn’t fly_ was looming at the edges of her thoughts like a particularly bad dream. She shivered, and Clef rubbed a hand up and down her back, and that was a welcome distraction and embarrassing and _not enough_ all at the same time. She dropped her head down to his shoulder again and stayed silent. 

“You’re cold.” Clef muttered, like this was somehow strange and new, and Umi bit her lip against a laugh. The push of his magic against her was almost enough to drown the full-body longing to be outside again, in the storm. 

“You need to dry off.” Lantis told them, wryly. “Else you’ll both be ill, and I doubt Cephiro would readily survive both of you miserably failing to be good patients.” 

“Yes, that-” Clef said, then the lightning cracked again, outside, and he flinched against her as if it had struck him, a sharp light flaring about him just long enough to imprint itself on the back of her eyes; without the afterimage she’d have thought she was imagining it. Without the blast of power, she might have thought it wasn’t much more than her own suppressed ache. “-That would be appreciated.” He finished. 

Looking up, Umi glared at him. “You’re still - but we’re inside!” She was trapped away from the wild energy which had felt so overwhelmingly good, and he was safe but still got to feel the rush with each thunderclap? Not fair! Not that she precisely wanted... 

Clef looked straight at her, his smile somewhat strained. “My magic has had far more opportunity to wind itself deeper into my being. In a few years, if you don’t learn to control it, I assure you that it will be just as much of an inconvenience to you as it is to me.” 

“I- oh, shut up.” She hissed. A real smile flashed across his face, and her glare faltered helplessly as her breath caught. 

They were really _far_ too close for him to look so beautiful. 

Clef twisted to look at Lantis. “I would prefer not to traipse through the hallways in this state.” He said, softly. “This weakness is an embarrassment in front of my friends, but for others, when I am meant to be Guru, and in control of myself...” 

“...There is an empty room along the corridor here.” Lantis said, slowly. “It is supposed to be a lounge, but it is too far from anyone’s rooms to be well used. The Guard were using it to keep our records in until the Guardrooms were finished in the winter. You could wait out the storm there. If I sent an order for spare clothes to be brought...” 

“Don’t bother.” Umi said, on a sigh, and wormed half out of Clef’s grasp, until there was enough space between them that she could rest her hands on his chest, level with his heart. She closed her eyes, mostly so neither man would see if hers went the same disturbing luminous colour as Clef’s kept going, and _tugged_ at the water saturating his clothes, dripping in his hair. It seemed as reluctant as she was to give up the contact, but it came, and she pulled it in loops about her forearms. 

She heard Clef’s breath hitch, and made herself ignore that too, trying not to imagine what expression he might be wearing to go with the sound... 

The thin trickle grew wider as she drew more moisture away, trying not to wonder how much of this was her fault - she remembered, though it was blurred, trying to wrap the rain over every inch of his skin, and the memory had her face heating furiously. But she did it, drew the water away from him, and then she crossed her arms to rest them on her own shoulders and did the same to herself. 

It took determination to not gasp as the droplets ran over her skin, still thrumming with Clef’s power and with the press of the storm - and she was damper than even Clef had been. She rushed, pulling harder and harder at the last drops of water until they were flying away from her, splashing into the clear damp coils of her make-shift bracelets. And when it was done she opened her eyes to watch the glint of the light on them, the tiny ripples mesmerising. 

“...Or that would work.” Clef murmured, and his hands were resting gently at her waist, now. “...You can let go of it, Umi. The floor will dry out before anyone else comes up here.”

“It’s _mine_.” She whispered, drawing her arms defensively back closer to herself, just barely keeping the water from brushing against her clothes and soaking back into it. “I’m not going to-” She broke off, not sure what would follow that, and Lantis’s voice was quiet, blending into the hush of the nighttime corridors. 

“The room is just down here. If you would come this way...” 

She let Clef nudge her in the right direction, still watching the twist and sway of the strands of water as they coiled in endlessly changing shapes about her, never quite touching her skin, just close enough she could feel the coolness coming from it. As long as they didn’t try to make her let it go, she didn’t care which way they walked - then there was a darker room, and Clef was pulling her to a long couch of some kind. She dropped down into it easily enough, and held her arms out to watch the water gleam in the darkness, catching the distant starlight filtering through the window - and with something more, too, inside. She wondered how it would feel, to be so smooth and cool, to twist and twine sinuously with no end and no beginning, glittering and- 

A rush of sensation across her shoulder, where Clef’s hand gripped her, static marking out her skin again. She blinked up at him, and the deep bowl he was holding out to her, the body clear as the water on her arms and the edge limned with some metal which gleamed cooly, colourless in the dark. “Here,” he said, dropping to his knees in front of her. “Will you let the water rest here for the night? It won’t leave you, and you’ll be able to let your arms rest like that. Aren’t you tired?” 

Umi hadn’t been, until he said so. But once he had... she felt languid, limbs heavy with a deep fatigue she hadn’t noticed under everything else, and reached out slowly to place her hands against the crystal. The water spilled down from her arms, a controlled flow instead of a rush, until only the very finest strands were glinting about her fingers. 

“All of it?” She asked, reluctantly, and tore her gaze away from the bowl to face him. Clef’s expression was half lost to the darkness, but she could make out the way he leant towards her. 

“All of it, Umi. Let it sleep for now.” 

“Oh, alright then.” She sighed, and let the last drops fall away. He set it down on the floor beside the chaise carefully, and was straightening back up when the room was painted clear as daylight by a bolt of lightning flickering so close outside the window that the sound stuck her almost before the light blinded them all. Clef made a choked noise, thumping down onto his knees and folding over. She didn’t think about it, just reached out and grabbed for his arms, dragged him up onto the cushions. 

Clef slumped into her, letting his forehead rest against the curve of her neck, and she curled one hand gently through his hair to hold him there. His breath was hot and uneven over her throat, and his hands were fists where they rested on her leg. The press of his magic was flaring fitfully in the air, fluttering against her, and she wondered what it must be like for all that energy to hit in one sharp blast then vanish again instead of the steady pressure of the rain. 

She let her head rest against the back of the settee. Umi didn’t know how to use her magic to anchor him, so she whispered softly, instead, offering her voice and a steady presence.

oOo

Clef dragged air into lungs which felt too tight, forcing himself to breathe through the aftershocks as the charge in the air settled again to a bearable level of tension. Umi was murmuring softly against his head, though she had to be uncomfortable with the hard curves of his circlet pressing into her skin, but she still held him close. 

Trying to focus with his whole self buzzing was awful, but he had to try. 

This was worse than he’d been affected for years - and it was his own fault, for _using_ it to catch Umi’s attention like that, but now he had to get himself back _under control_ and it wasn’t... easy. 

He wasn’t certain if being draped over Umi was making it worse, or better. It was certainly a distraction, but only because he was aware of his body’s reaction to her - and, no, that was a lie. It wasn’t just his form which was drawn to her, or just his magic which wanted to reach out and spark through the cool shimmering of the water wrapped through her skin. He’d grown to care for her long before this, and this adult form made it very clear his ‘caring’ was not simple friendship. 

But even this could be endured, resisted and waited out without making a fool of himself, without - worse - asking for something neither of them were in any position to consent to, though it took all his horror at the thought of the latter to keep the idea fixed in his head.

The wind, at least, was on his side; that cloud, so heavy with charge, was blown over before his neck started to ache too much at the angle he was curled into. The next was more bearable, and eventually he dared to shift enough to get himself fully onto the sofa and leant at a much easier angle into Umi’s shoulder. 

Umi reached up then, and pushed clumsily at his headband. “Take this thing off, it can’t be good to sleep in.” She murmured, and Clef hadn’t noticed how much calmer she had become until that made him uncoil to look at her. She was tilted to watch the rain on the window, now washing it only gently, but she turned when he sat up and blinked slowly at him. “What? Aren’t you tired?” She asked, then he saw her sit a little straighter as she woke up again. “Not that - I didn’t mean - you don’t have to stay, you can go back to your room now! I could go to mine! It’s not so bad anymore-” 

“Shut up, I’m not going to leave you alone.” He told her, grumpily, and reached to yank the headdress off. He dropped it to the floor, down near the bowl of water, but didn’t miss the way Umi relaxed again. “Just - we’ve got an entire sofa, why are we stuck at one end of it? May as well lie down.”

He muttered it more than anything, glad the darkness should hide the blush he couldn’t stop, but he didn’t mean - it would be more comfortable. That was all. And Umi didn’t object to reclining against the arm of the settee. She rested against him without being invited, tucking her head down against his chest, and he fumbled for the throw which had to be draped over the settee, they all had them - yes, there it was, and he pulled it over both of them, tucking it over her shoulder before hesitating. But there was nowhere else to put his arm, so he had to lay it over her side. 

It was... surprisingly comfortable. 

Umi’s weight was an anchor, and as she began to drowse he finally began to settle, his attention span lengthening back until he could finish a thought before getting distracted. It felt right, having her with him. And he was aware just how dangerous that thought was, but he had to be honest with himself at this point - he’d pretty much doomed himself on the rooftop, with that first kiss, and she was going to be demanding answers from him tomorrow whatever he did now. He might as well make the most of the quiet, her breath slow and steady against his throat.

Eventually, Clef drifted asleep as well. Some time later he roused enough to shiver as the last traces of the storm let go their hold. A shadow across the room moved, quietly, and he’d long since forgotten they weren’t alone, but wasn’t near awake enough to be mortified as he somehow thought he would be, later. “...Good night, Lantis.” Clef murmured, voice blurred with sleep. 

“Good night.” Lantis replied, and there was a brief moment of light as the door to the corridor was opened. Umi grumbled and pressed her face further into Clef’s chest. He rubbed her arm, absently, and pulled the makeshift blanket higher over them. 

Then, finally, he slipped down into a real sleep. 

oOo

Umi drifted awake. It was still dark outside, but the wind had shifted the clouds on and starlight slipped into the room between hastily drawn curtains. She shifted, and raised her head just a little - just enough to look up and spot Clef blink his eyes open. His hair was tangled across his face; she saw him shake his head briefly, attempting to get it out of the way, but it fell straight back. So she reached up, unthinking, and combed it back. Her hand lingered on the curve of his cheek, reluctant to pull away. 

Slowly, she woke up a little more, and realised quite what she was doing - then what she had _done_ , and the memories distracted her too much to move before Clef twisted a little, and pressed his lips to the palm of her hand. 

It was a simple, chaste thing. The heat which shot through her was nothing of the sort, an ache settling in her stomach, in the hollows of her hips. The briefest of touches, but she felt his whole body tense as _he_ woke up, too, and she untangled herself enough to push up on one arm, lean forward over him. “Clef...” she whispered, brushing her thumb over his cheek, and he was still below her, tense. Starlight bleached all colour from the room, but she could still see how large his eyes had grown. “Clef, do you still - I - would you-” 

He reached up, and Umi folded down into him, their lips meeting with barely less urgency than they had on the roof. “I do. I want-” He gasped out, caught her lips again, ran his hands up over her back. “I’ve wanted you since I took on this form.” He confessed, into the short, intimate space between them when she drew back for air. “I’ve been drawn to you for... well, for longer than I want to admit. You distract me _horribly_.” 

“It was bad enough when I was just in love with you.” Umi retorted, looking down at him. Hair tousled, clothes mussed, staring back up at her - it was an image she wanted to imprint on her memory forever. “Then you looked like _this_ , and I can’t stop _staring_.” 

“Maybe- more exposure- will give us immunity-” Clef got out between kisses, and Umi had to drop her head to his shoulder a moment and laugh at him for that.

“I can’t believe you just _said that_ , Clef!”

“Can’t believe you’re here with me, so.” Clef, said, unrepentant, a grin lurking about his mouth. He shrugged, as well as he could lying down and with his arms about her, and she kissed him swifter than before, open-mouthed. 

Heat flared, as intense as the sensations called up by the storm but brighter, more intimate. Clothes were fumbled aside, quickly at first, then hesitantly - do you really want - yes, do you? - and then with hands which trembled on buttons and fastenings, traced the skin below so lightly it tickled. Clef pressed his mouth to Umi’s skin, tracing paths with his tongue which drew a soft curse from her. 

His hands - clever, long-fingered hands - slid lower, and she gasped against his mouth and was for the first time _glad_ of the seven centuries he’d seen if it had taught him skills like _this_ , and she was more than willing to take advantage of that, shuddering against him, tasting his skin slick with sweat as she pressed her mouth to his jaw, his throat, the flexing line where it joined his shoulder. 

She scraped her teeth over it as much by accident as anything, utterly distracted by the coils of sensation winding tighter until her teeth drew a broken gasp from him. Her eyes flew open as she raised her head to look at him, and she realised suddenly that this way he was in control - not of her, though that too, but of _himself_ , and that she wanted _more_ from him - only the moment he caught his breath he twisted his fingers and arched up to lick the line of her collarbone, drag his teeth from it across the rise of her chest, and she lost track of anything else. 

But she didn’t forget it.

Umi shook apart against Clef, and paused to catch her breath, but then she pushed up on her elbows to look down at him. Clef’s smile was smug, in the thin light, and he was tracing soothing circles on her back, plainly half expecting to let things rest at that for now. But however smug he looked, that smile wasn’t satisfied, not yet. And she wanted to have that from him. She wanted to pull him with her to the edge of control and over it, see him shake as he had when the thunder split the world. She wanted to be the force which demanded that honest unthinking reaction. 

She wanted to be able to make him let go of everything, just for a while.

His eyes grew rounder in surprise as she smirked down at him, planning. She leant close to press that advantage, lips hovering millimetres above his to mutter “What, is that all you’ve got, old man?” Then she claimed his mouth with her own, swallowing down the indignant noise he made, and set to learning how to break him apart as he had her. 

oOo

The morning sunlight spilled over the lounge, where the stars had gilded them long hours before. Umi woke up first, again, when she twisted in her sleep and the throw slipped down to expose her bare shoulder. The morning air was cool in the room, though it was warm enough under the blanket, with both of them wrapped up and the bulk of Clef’s robes over the top.

She had enough time to blink at Clef, and smile at the mad tangle of his hair, then he shifted slightly, and he was waking up before she was awake enough to - to, what? To panic? 

She... didn’t actually know what was the right thing to do, in this kind of situation. She’d never _been_ in a situation like this before, so that wasn’t surprising, but...

All the films and the books she’d been forced to watch with parents and friends agreed on one thing: panicking and saying the wrong thing or running away in the morning after was one of the biggest causes of misunderstandings going. So she... was just, not going to do _that_ , she decided. She would wait, and see what Clef did. _Then_ she could work out what to do. 

(What she wanted to do was lean forwards and kiss the sharp line of his collarbone, where the sunlight slid over his skin. But even the thought of it made her feel embarrassed - also, every move she made just made it clearer they were both very much _not wearing anything_ under the cloak, which was horribly distracting, and if he didn’t want-)

Clef blinked up at her, and then he smiled, so freely that her breath caught. “Morning.” He said, voice rough with sleep, and reached out to push several strands of her hair back behind her ear, fingers brushing her cheek. Umi bit her lip on an embarrassingly broad grin. 

“I’m not sure it’s really morning anymore.” She said, just as quietly as he had. “You’re _late for work_ , Clef! And the Castle hasn’t fallen down in shock!” 

Rolling his eyes, Clef cupped her face and pulled gently until she leaned further forwards across him. “And I don’t regret it at all.” he whispered, like a confession, and though the smile was still quirking about his lips, he looked serious.

Umi’s breath caught. “You...”

“Would rather like to have the kind of relationship with you where we could not regret doing similar things again, maybe even frequently. We might even _talk_ sometimes.” He looked up at her guilelessly, until he couldn’t help it, the corner of his mouth twitched up, and she leant down to kiss any smile right off his face.

“That... sounds like a plan I could agree to.” She murmured, a moment later, pulling just far enough away that her lips didn’t quite touch his. “Maybe you should persuade me to do so...”

Warm laughter filled the room, mingling with sunlight from the clear skies outside. And on the horizon, unnoticed, wisps of cloud drifted closer, the next spring storm beginning to mass.

oOo

end

oOo


End file.
